The Analysis: Northern Superchargers Men v Oval Invincibles Men

ELIZABETH BOTCHERBY looks back on the talking points from Emerald Headingley

Oval (not quite) Invincibles

The origin of franchise names is quite a wormhole to get sucked into and, if you have a spare 15 minutes, I’d recommend picking a league/sport/franchise of your choosing and looking into it.

Some teams choose a name with ties to the local area - think Denver Nuggets and the gold rush, Houston Rockets and NASA, Delhi Capitals (that one is pretty self-explanatory). Others keep it simple like Halifax Blue Sox, who wore blue socks. Some favour a pleasing-on-the-ear alliteration (Pittsburgh Penguins, Warrington Wolves etc.) and then there are those with seemingly no explanation at all (Seattle Kraken, anyone?).

However, not since Bradford Bulls toyed with the idea of calling themselves the Bradford Boars has a team picked a name that is as easy to ridicule as Oval Invincibles. Why would anyone select the name Invincibles before playing a game? Even changing your name to 'Invincibles' after winning back to back titles would feel like a risk.

And yet, after playing five matches, Oval Invincibles have won three games and, crucially, lost two. Their second defeat – the men’s team collapsing to 60 for 6 with the bat and producing numerous fielding errors to hand Northern Superchargers the win on a silver platter – was quite embarrassing, and one can’t help but wonder how much irony will accompany their name for the remainder of The Hundred.

Matty Potts silences the doubters

During Southern Brave’s clash with Birmingham Phoenix at the Ageas Bowl on Friday night, The Cricketer pondered whether James Vince had got his bowling changes wrong by opting not to use his spinners during the final 35 balls of his side’s bowling innings, despite the pair of Jake Lintott and Liam Dawson excelling that evening.

And there were similar thoughts circling in the Twittersphere when it emerged that Northern Superchargers captain David Willey had dropped Callum Parkinson for Matty Potts. A spinner for a seamer? On a used pitch? That used pitch being at Headingley? Surely you’re mistaken?

No, not mistaken. And what a shrewd decision it turned out to be. Potts conceded two runs of his first five and eight off his second to finish the powerplay with figures of 0 for 10 before returning to the attack just before the halfway mark and bowling Sam Billings. True, his final five took an 11-run pummelling but the 22-year-old, who has a team-leading 16 wickets for Durham in the T20 Blast, certainly repaid his captain’s faith in his white-ball skills and has maybe done enough to cement his place in the XI.

120+ run scoreline flatters rusty Invincibles

Due to the rain washing out their clash with London Spirit last Sunday, Oval Invincibles headed into their clash with Northern Superchargers having not played a competitive match since July 22, and their rustiness was apparent from the off.

Winning the toss and electing to bat on a used pitch (a smart decision) scored just 10 runs off the first 20 balls and lost Will Jacks to a cheap nick through to the keeper. It took them 23 balls to reach the boundary and aside from a cameo appearance from mystery spinner Sunil Narine at number three – the Barbadian crunched 22 runs from 11 balls – Oval Invincibles had little reason to be cheerful until the final 20 deliveries. In fact, in the space of 25 balls, the London side lost five wickets for just 20 runs, with Narine, Colin Ingram, Sam Billings and Laurie Evans all dismissed cheaply (Dane Vilas’ catch to remove Jordan Clark was impressive).

What. A. Take. 😱 #TheHundredpic.twitter.com/7ZnMwadC9l

— The Cricketer (@TheCricketerMag) July 31, 2021

And despite Tom Curran (whose performance with the bat will have both annoyed the many England fans who feel he isn’t deserving of international caps and maybe strengthened his T20 World Cup ambitions) and Jason Roy pummelling 49 runs, and seven of their nine combined boundaries, off the final four fives, there can be no denying Oval Invincibles need to improve with the bat – and fast.

After all, a 48-ball lull between boundaries is never a good sign for a side which boasts such an enviable batting line-up.

It didn’t get much better in the field either. Harry Brook and Chris Lynn, in particular, had few difficulties in locating the boundary, Jacks (to pick on an individual) made two costly fielding blunders in the space of six balls, and Saqib Mahmood dropped a routine catch off the bowling of Curran at the death. Unsurprisingly, all three fielding mistakes delighted the nearby 1863 Enclosure.

All in all, there’s certainly plenty of things for Oval Invincibles to think about in the 48 hours until they face Welsh Fire at The Oval.

Yorkshire crowd back Northern Superchargers

One of the key reasons for introducing The Hundred, alongside making cricket both simpler and shorter in order to appeal to non-watchers, was to trial city-based teams as research had shown people identify more readily with a city than a county. And it’s fair to say that the good folk of Yorkshire have taken to Northern Superchargers, and then some.

The 6,000 or so fans in attendance at the women’s match were on the edge of their seats during the final ten balls and greeted the wicket of Sarah Bryce, and Mady Villiers’ failure to hit a six off the final ball, with a pair of humungous roars. And when the men’s game commenced just under 60 minutes later, the reception was the same: huge cheers for every Northern Superchargers player, pantomime jeers for the men in turquoise.

People across the cricket community were sceptical before the competition about how the teams would be received. Well, there can be little doubting the home advantage awarded to both the men’s and women’s sides at Headingley.